Drilling in Canada aids martian life search
Photo credit: Mars Exploration, JPL, NASA
JB: This is Earth and Sky. Scientists believe one of the best places to search for life beyond Earth is the planet Mars.
DB: Mars is extremely cold, dry and bathed in ultraviolet radiation. But below the surface, it may be warmer and wetter – a perfect home for microbes. Robots or human explorers might someday drill into Mars in search of life. Lisa Pratt is a geologist at Indiana University. She’s part of a team that’s starting to drill below a mine in the Canadian arctic.
Lisa Pratt: . . . And that’s where we hope we can get experience drilling through materials that are a mixture of rocky and icy and slushy materials that would give us an experience similar to what we might encounter on Mars . . .
JB: Pratt says there are some potential hazards to working in mines such as cave–ins and toxic gases.
Lisa Pratt: It sounds a little crazy at first, but when you think about it, it’s really no different than the marine biologists who choose to explore the sea floor in a submersible. They are also taking enormous personal risks, but the safety has been thought through and every consideration has been given that can be given.
DB: Pratt predicts that the first robotic drilling mission on Mars will happen in about 10 to 15 years. With thanks to the National Science Foundation, we’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.
Lisa Pratt is the Director of a NASA astrobiology institute made up of researchers from Indiana, Princeton and Tennessee.
Hazel Barton is another microbiologist who searches for new microorganisms deep underground. Instead of mines, she searches in caves.
There are several challenges to doing this kind of research in a mine: you have to keep the mine owners happy; you have to get all the equipment there; you have to prevent contamination with surface microbes; and the drill bit can easily seize up if it’s cold and you’re bringing up liquid from below.
Our thanks to:
Lisa Pratt
Gill Fellow College of Arts and Sciences
Professor of Geological Sciences
and Director of NASA’s Indiana–Princeton–Tennessee Astrobiology Institute
University of Indiana
